A fast-moving thunderstorm crossed Kent County Wednesday night and Thursday morning, downing trees and power lines and darkening homes west of Dover.

In the city itself, a tree limb took down an electric line at about 12:50 a.m. on College Road, cutting power to about 900 customers, said City Manager Scott Koenig. City electric crews restored service in about three hours, he said.

An electric pole snapped at about 12:30 a.m. in the area of Park Drive and Bayard Avenue, plunging about 700 customers into the dark. As of 8 a.m. all but 40 homes had had their power restored.

Koenig said he had no reports of any flooding in the city.

In western Kent County, Delaware Electric Coop and Delmarva Power had crews out most of the morning.

The storm initially cut power to about 3,500 members, said Coop spokesman Jeremy Tucker. That number had dropped to just over 1,880 by 5 a.m. As of 8 a.m., the Coop was reporting 504 customers without electricity.

“The outages are concentrated between west Dover and the Hartly area,” Tucker said. “Crews have been working all night and will continue to work for the next few hours.”

The situation is particularly acute along Crystal Road, southeast of the town of Hartly, Tucker said.

“On that section of road, there’s nothing but trees down and on power lines and poles. It will take a couple of hours to clean up.”

Dudley Puckett, of Hartly Road, surveyed the damage to his property early Thursday. Although trees had fallen all over, none had hit his home or garage. Many, however, had been snapped off in a manner reminiscent of the damage done when a tornado came through the Marydel area in May.

Claudine Marcum’s home on Everetts Corner Drive also escaped damage, but the same could not be said for a large tree in her front yard, which had fallen and snapped a power line running along the road.

“It happened at about 12:30,” she said. “There was just this loud buzzing. We went out at 2:30 and saw all the damage.

“We were lucky we didn’t have any more damage than we did,” Marcum said. “It was just so loud. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Delawareans should be prepared for similar weather between Thursday evening and Friday morning.

The National Weather Service has posted a flash flood watch through noon July 4 for Kent and Sussex counties. A cold front coming from the northwest will stall over the area and will interact with moisture from Hurricane Arthur, which will be moving up the Atlantic seaboard.

One to three inches of rain, with locally higher amounts are possible, according to the NWS bulletin issued at 3:33 a.m. Thursday.